Sometimes, just believing in oneself is all it takes to find success.
As cliché as that may sound, Georgia basketball coach Tom Crean said that is exactly why his team was able to come into Auburn on Tuesday night and upend the Tigers, 91-86.
“They came in believing they can win,” Crean said. “We were very focused; we had very good energy. We were very locked in and I thought it showed in the way we played.”
This was the same Auburn team that defeated the Bulldogs 95-77 three weeks ago in Athens, but this time it was a different Georgia team (11-6, 4-6) that took the floor. UGA came away with its second road win of the year.
“Not only did we believe we could win, but we followed through by executing the game plan in a very good way,” Crean said. “A lot of things become the product of that, ball movement that creates back cuts, ball movement that creates open threes, ball movement attacking that creates free throws … the energy mixed with the belief was really good.”
The statistics told the story.
With the exception of an early 2-2 tie, the Bulldogs lead the entire way, placing six players in double-figures.
Tye Fagan led with 16 points, followed by Toumani Camara with 15 points, P.J. Horne and Sahvir Wheeler with 13, K.D. Johnson with 12 and Justin Kier with 11. Grad transfer Andrew Garcia almost made it seven players in double-figures, finishing with nine. Camara had 12 rebounds as well.
“I told the guys this is how we’re build. We had six guys in double-figures,” Crean said. “We don’t have that one guy who is carrying you in scoring every night, but you do have to have somebody who is setting the table every night and Sahvir does that.”
The Bulldogs also shot an impressive 43.8 percent from three-point range (7 of 16), outrebounded the Tigers 40-32 and converted 18 of their 24 free throw attempts.
For Fagan, the victory was especially sweet.
In their previous meeting, the junior scored just two points in 10 minutes, an effort he said helped motivate him for Tuesday’s contest. Fagan converted 7 of his 10 field goal attempts and for good measure pulled down six rebounds to spark the Bulldogs’ second-straight win.
“It was very motivational because I knew I had to be there for my team,” Fagan said. “I just wanted to do anything that I needed to do, whether it was rebound, play defense, run the floor. I just wanted to make up for that game because it wasn’t one of my best ones.”
Georgia, which led by as many as 15 points, saw the Tigers (10-9, 4-6) get as close as three in the second half but were able to take advantage of some porous Auburn defense, converting 24 layups and racking up 52 points in the paint.
The Bulldogs also did better job defensively on Sharife Cooper, the talented Tiger freshman, who burned Georgia for 28 points in the earlier meeting.
“We wanted to bring more pressure to him, bring more fatigue to him throughout the game,” Crean said. “He draws 9.6 fouls per game so it’s not about getting up into him and bulldogging him, because he’s very, very adept at drawing fouls. There were a couple of times where we were overzealous, but we did a good job of putting different people on him and bringing pressure because we have tremendous respect for how he plays.”
Georgia returns to action Saturday when the Bulldogs host Vanderbilt at 1 p.m.
